I passed some sleepless nights in revolving the subject in my mind. The idea constantly recurred to me, as a sort of waking dream, that General Taylor would leave a force in Fort Brown and with the main body of his army cut his way to Point Isabel. I was disposed to blame him for suffering himself to be separated from his depot of supplies; but the war itself came on him suddenly, and he was obliged to _wait the first blow_. In this feverish state of mind, a friend came to my house early one morning with two newspaper slips containing the accounts of the two battles of Palo Alto, and Resaca. Never was the anxiety of a people more suddenly and joyfully relieved! It was like the anxiety felt by a family for the fate of those nearest and dearest to it. We are peculiarly a national people; for every man has a share in the Government; feels an interest in it, as a part owner, and he feels his own safety and honor embarked in the same bottom with the safety and honor of the nation. Thank God, we are safe! They must be very short sighted men who could wish success to the Mexicans. We should have had scenes of bloodshed and devastation unparalleled. Our preparations for war would have had to be renewed on a vast and expensive scale; the most extravagant hopes in the presumptuous and barbarous enemy would have been encouraged; while even the Sabine, for a boundary, would not have contented them. Their demands would have known no bounds, and the prospects of peace, would have been remote indeed. Now, humbled and broken, their country exposed to invasion and conquest, if we only will it; undeceived in their fancied military pre-eminence, they must be insane if they do not hasten to sue for peace. I confess, I did not look for such decided success in the first blow, which, in wars and battles, is often so important; and that, over a people who have been continually practising the art of war, and who ought to excel in it, if they can excel in any thing. If the history of nations be a history of battles, (as it is said to be) Mexico will claim a conspicuous page in that history. European nations, who have been in the habit of judging others, chiefly by their military prowess, will open their eyes when they receive the news; for they have already prognosticated according to their wishes, that we must be disgraced in the trial of arms with Mexico.